Our little baby arrived on Easter Thursday. Josh’s first biological child and my first baby girl. She was a tiny two kilograms, very small, as she had stopped growing in-utero for about a month, in total in addition to being born a month early. Our precious little baby was whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) straight after delivery. I was overwhelmingly grateful that she was with us. The scans over the past seven weeks had been stressful: before each one, I was convinced that bad news lay ahead. That the placenta had failed, or that (at the absolute worst) our baby would have no heartbeat. At the start of each scan, I would hold my breath, shut my eyes and say a little prayer that the baby was still alive. I’d only allow myself to relax once I heard the baby’s heartbeat through the monitor. Permanently convinced that tragedy would strike at any moment, I was a nerve-wracked mess and wracked with nerves – not the best emotional state for heading into newborn territory.
Bonnie, our beautiful little cherub, spent four weeks in the NICU, graduating from a fully enclosed cot hooked up to a million wires, to an open cot. The last hurdle was the removal of her gastric feeding tube. It was a month like no other. I’d set my alarm for 6am to drive down to the hospital to give Bonnie her first feed, at first through the gastric tube. As time went on and she grew stronger, I simultaneously breastfed her. I’d meet with her doctor, express milk for later feeds, change her and wait for the next feed at 10 or 11am, after which I’d pump more milk to keep my supply up, and do any tiny task I was allowed, which helped me feel like I was mothering my baby. At about 2pm I’d set off to collect the boys from school and kindergarten, take them home, sort out dinner, pack their lunches for the next day and wait for Josh to get home. As soon as he did, I’d go back down to the hospital for 1–2 feeds, before getting home and crawling into bed. Overnight, I’d wake up to express breast milk … and then repeat it all the next day.
Leaving your baby behind in a NICU is incredibly hard. I cried and cried the first night I was discharged from hospital. I remember feeling so angry with people who said things like, Well at least you get to skip the night feeds and have some sleep. In reality, I was getting about the same amount of sleep as any newborn mother, without the joy of holding and cuddling my baby in my own home. Another unhelpful comment was, At least she will be in a good routine from being in hospital. Which was true, but not a worthy trade-off for the stress of seeing your baby attached to wires in a room full of strangers. It was tough, but as hard as it was, I had a baby to hold, feed and nurture. And I knew she would eventually be coming home with me.
After four exhausting weeks, I ended up having a fairly robust conversation with Bonnie’s pediatrician. I wanted to remove the gastric tube and to try to move her to breast and bottle feeds only. I felt the tube was delaying her progress, as she was always so full when fed through it. She never had had to cry out for a feed or learn what it felt like to be hungry. She was like a foie gras goose, always force-fed and full to the brim. Eventually, the paediatrician allowed that if after forty-eight hours of no tube feeds, she gained weight, we were free to go. We scraped in by fifteen grams at the final weigh-in. The NICU nurses said they had never seen anyone pack up and leave as quickly as I did. Having everyone home together was my absolute dream. The NICU is a strange, clinical setting; if it weren’t for the incredible nurses who work in this area, I’d say it was an utterly depressing place. The nurses who looked after Bonnie were brilliant women who made a tough time bearable.
After the complications of Bonnie’s pregnancy, we didn’t make the decision to have another baby lightly. We talked about it a lot and agreed it would be the cherry on top of our happiness. Josh has always felt like the boys are his own and sees them as no less ‘his’ than Bonnie is, so for him one more child was an indulgence, an added blessing. I wanted another baby for many reasons, one being that I’d always dreamed of having four children. I can’t really articulate why. Our household was already very busy and chaotic, but I loved it. Most of all, I absolutely loved seeing the kids together and witnessing their friendships. The boys had gradually increased the time they spent at their dad’s from three to five nights a fortnight by the time Bonnie was eighteen months old. This created a huge shift in the dynamic of our household every other week.
The adjustment from being little sister to two crazy, highly entertaining brothers to being an only child was a lot for Bonnie to handle. She missed her brothers and would crawl around the house searching for them. I knew how she felt. I have never gotten used to the boys leaving. Even years later, I still miss them when they’re at their dad’s. I wanted to give Bonnie one permanent sibling who’d always be there, and would be closer to her in age.
Around the time we gave serious consideration to trying again, I started having severe abdominal pain. A series of scans revealed that what had begun as a small follicular cyst had grown to an alarming size and I would have to have it removed by laparoscopic surgery. My overactive, disaster-oriented imagination went into overdrive. Signing the pre-surgery paperwork giving consent to removal of ovaries and or fallopian tubes – or a full hysterectomy if found to be necessary – I thought, Shit! This had better all turn out okay. I really want another baby and don’t think I’ll cope at all if the option is taken away from me.
Thankfully, the cyst burst of its own accord in the days prior to surgery and nothing alarming was found from the biopsy taken during the procedure. To give my body time to recover, we waited a few months before having my Mirena contraceptive removed and trying for other baby. By now I was thirty-seven and Josh was forty-three, so I was acutely aware that it might take longer to fall pregnant than last time. I cut back on coffee, pretty much stopped drinking alcohol and made a huge effort to look after myself. I really wanted this to happen and wanted nothing else to hinder my chances or delay our plan.
Just as I was about to give in and see a fertility specialist, I saw those two lines. I am not a patient person. When I decide to do something, I want it to happen immediately, if not yesterday. I was so relieved we had fallen pregnant; my impatience was starting to overshadow my daily thoughts. As excited and happy as I was, I also felt incredibly nervous. I felt like I was pushing my luck with this fourth baby, but tried hard to brush those thoughts aside. I told myself I was being ridiculous: everything would be fine.
Chapter 3 The cherry on top
From the very beginning, I felt like my pregnancy with Miles was doomed. I know it sounds dramatic, but I had a strange feeling that something was wrong, which I voiced over and over to Josh. I started bleeding at nine weeks and was convinced it was all over. I was getting ready to go out for dinner with a bunch of girlfriends. Dressed and ready to go, I went to the loo just before leaving and saw the tell-tale signs of bleeding. My heart immediately sank. There is very little that can calm the nerves of a pregnant mother who has discovered she is bleeding. I wanted to stay home, but felt rude pulling out at the last minute. (I used to often worry about being ‘rude’ – that is one thing that has completely left me since I lost Miles.)
Thankfully, the bleeding stopped after a day or so. A scan showed that the yolk sack was full of blood and I was assured that this was not unusual and certainly nothing to worry too much about. Despite being told that everything was fine, I kept thinking that at any point, something terrible might happen. Every time I went to the bathroom, I expected to see blood. I had another new obstetrician, as the one I had with Bonnie had now retired. My new guy seemed nice, fairly relaxed and didn’t seem overly concerned about my history of IUGR. He felt it was something we could talk about later if the need arose. I tried to be cool and adopt his ‘take it as it comes’ approach,